Outlining the murder case against William Felix Vail

The Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office outlined their case against William Felix Vail in
an eight-page arrest warrant and affidavit, released Friday.

After what Sheriff Tony Mancuso and
District Attorney John DeRosier said was a joint yearlong investigation,
Vail, 73, was
on Friday charged with second-degree murder, arrested in Canyon
Lake, Texas, and brought to Lake Charles. He waived extradition.

Vail is a suspect in the death of his wife, Mary Horton Vail, 50 years ago. When her body was pulled from the Calcasieu River
in 1962, her death was ruled a drowning.

Felix did not answer questions asked by reporters as he was transferred from an airplane at Lake Charles Regional Airport
to a sheriff’s cruiser Friday night.

Mancuso said Felix has not confessed to the crime.

The affidavit lists suspicious circumstances surrounding her death and says Felix is the last person known to have contact
with two other women who are missing.

When Calcasieu authorities traveled to
Canyon Lake to interview Felix at his home (described in the affidavit
as “a locked
compound, the property surrounded by an 8 foot fence topped with
barbed wire, and pad locks on all entry gates”), he claimed
he was the victim of a cover-up by former District Attorney Frank
Salter and other influential people in Calcasieu, the affidavit
said.

Felix and Mary’s marriage was “marked by friction,” the affidavit said. She wanted another child and Felix did not want the
son they already had.

Felix claimed he and Mary were running
trot lines on the Calcasieu River in north Lake Charles on Oct. 28,
1962, but her relatives
claimed it was “extremely unusual” that she would have gone
fishing because she was frightened of dark water, the affidavit
said.

When he pulled his boat into Shell
Beach dock at 7:30 p.m., two hours after sunset, he told officers that
he and Mary had
both fallen in the water, but when he surfaced he could not find
her, the affidavit said. Mary’s body was found near the Halliburton
docks on Oct. 30, 1962.

Felix was arrested Nov. 4, 1962, although he was released three days later. The case was presented to a grand jury in January
1963, but the grand jury said it could not make a decision, the affidavit said.

Investigators interviewed a former
roommate of Felix’s, Isaac Abshire, who was called to testify at the
grand jury. Abshire
was on his father’s boat, which had contracted with the sheriff’s
office to find the body, when Mary was pulled from the river.
The affidavit said he was extremely suspicious because her arms
were crossed in front of her, there was a scarf inside her
mouth and there was a bruise on both the back of her head and her
forehead.

The original investigators gave Abshire two photos of the body being pulled from the river, as well as a copy of the original
report, which are the only known remaining copies, the affidavit said.

Investigators also interviewed a
Mississippi man, Thomas Turnage, who claimed that while riding to work
one day, Vail became
angry while discussing Mary, calling her a derogatory term, the
affidavit said. She “wanted another baby because she thought
it
might save our marriage —­ but I didn’t want the one I got and I sure
didn’t want another one ­— I fixed that damn bitch
— she won’t ever have another one,” Turnage said Felix told him.
Turnage claimed when he heard that, he knew Felix had murdered
Mary.

Felix had taken out a $50,000 life insurance policy on Mary on June 1, 1962. Neighbor Norma Kee, with whom the couple had
left their son, Billy, the night Mary died, told authorities that Felix had also purchased an $8,000 life insurance policy
through Allstate.

Dr. Avery Cook, who was not a forensic
pathologist, performed the original autopsy. He ruled Mary’s death an
accidental drowning,
although he could not determine the manner of death, the affidavit
said. He said she had contusions on her neck and head and
on both legs.

In re-examining the autopsy, current
Calcasieu Coroner Terry Welke determined that Mary was “faced-down and
dead before she
was placed in the water,” the affidavit said. Welke said Mary was
murdered, although he could not state what killed her, the
affidavit said.

The case was reopened briefly in 1970 when Billy, Felix and Mary’s son, told investigators that he had overheard Felix sobbing
and telling girlfriend Sharon Hensley that he had murdered Mary, the affidavit said.

It was reopened recently after a report by Mississippi investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell, the affidavit said.

Hensley’s family reported her missing in 1973. Felix claimed Hensley left Key West, Fla., with an Australian couple named
John and Vanessa to sail around the world, the affidavit said.

The mother of Annette Craver Vail,
Felix’s second wife, reported her missing to Tulsa, Okla., authorities
on Oct. 22, 1984.
Annette was 17 when she married 46-year-old Felix. Vail claimed
that because Annette was unsatisfied with their marriage she
wanted to leave and he dropped her off at a Trailways bus station
in St. Louis and never saw her again, the affidavit said.

The property on which Felix now lives
was deeded to him by the husband of a man whose wife drowned while night
boating, the
affidavit said. Virginia Kathey Bias Thomason drowned on Canyon
Lake on July 3, 2005. She was in the middle of a divorce from
Charles Thomason, who had once been married to Felix’s niece,
Vicki Oakley, the affidavit said. No one placed Felix in the
area in July 2005, although he did receive a speeding ticket in
Canyon Lake in November 2005, the affidavit said.

A suspicious fire destroyed the house on the property in June 2007, after which Thomason received $215,000 in insurance money,
the affidavit said. He transferred the property to Felix in December 2012, the affidavit said.

If Mary died of an accident, “this is extremely unlucky as the disappearance of women associated with him is not uncommon,”
the affidavit said.

The 15 Points Of Suspicion

The 15 suspicious points investigators noted in 1962:

1. It was unlikely that Mary would have been sitting on the back rest of the boat seat without a life preserver when she could
not swim and had a fear of water.

2. If Felix maneuvered the boat as he said he did, they probably would have fallen in differently than he claimed.

3. When heading in for help, he passed a lighted tug boat without requesting assistance.

4. He passed other lighted locations where he could have requested assistance.

5. His boat likely would have continued to run even if his gas tank turned over.

6. The gas tank was not sitting in its proper place.

7. His trot line, which he had just taken up from the river, was coiled in his tackle box.

8. Felix had recently purchased a $50,000 life insurance policy on Mary, in addition to the $8,000 policy he already had on
her.

9. He made offensive and vulgar statements about his wife, including that he did not love her.

10. Felix had sexual relationships with other females and at least one male.

11. A majority of the witnesses interviewed said Felix was capable of killing Mary.

12. He said it was the first time he had taken Mary on the river to run trot lines.

13. He had bought the life insurance policy even though he was behind on most of his major bills.

14. Felix said Mary was wearing a leather jacket when she fell in the water, but she was not wearing the jacket when she was
found.

15. He did not give a reasonable explanation why he refused to take a polygraph test.